Coin counting and sorting equipment is often adversely affected by the presence of foreign matter. Mechanical and electronic sorting systems and methods can fail, be damaged, caused to misread and/or become jammed. Mechanical devices such as coin transport mechanisms, coin hoppers and the like may be caused to jam or otherwise malfunction by foreign matter. Sensors may be prevented from accurately identifying a coin because of non-coin matter accompanying the coins. Sensors may become blocked or rendered ineffective because of non-coin matter collecting and or being deposited onto sensor parts. When the sensors fail the coin counting process has failed and coins are often undesirably rejected or are accepted as the incorrect denomination. The amount of non-coin matter varies and is unpredictable. In many situations, the reliability and accuracy of coin sorting, identification and/or counting processes is very important and thus the process of removing non-coin matter before the coins are transported to sorting, identification and/or counting sensors is important. The presence of non-coin matter is believed to be especially troublesome in the context of self-service, stand-alone, unmonitored and/or unattended devices, e.g. devices for counting/sorting coins by the general public or other non-trained persons. Accordingly, it would be useful to provide self-service coin processing machinery which can process coins which are accompanied by non-coin matter.
The removal of one type of undesirable non-coin matter does not often eliminate other kinds because the material is so varied. Metal objects may be identified by properties such as density, shape, magnetic characteristics, etc. Typically, removing dense matter such as rocks is entirely different than removing metal or paper objects. Coins may have been stored with materials that have caused corrosion or have become coated with oils, glue and other liquids that collect dirt and other debris. These coins contaminate others as they come into physical contact and may cause adhesion, clumping or grouping of coins. A magnetic separator would not eliminate all this various non-coin matter.
The present invention provides for separating non-coin objects from coins in a coin-sorting, discriminating or counting device, preferably prior to coins reaching certain coin transport devices, such as transport devices for transporting coins toward a hopper or sensor, preferably prior to coins reaching a coin hopper which provides coins to sensors and preferably prior to the coins reaching the counter/sorting sensors. In one embodiment the separation device is a generally tubular or concave surface, having one or more openings through which non-coin objects travel, and which cause coins introduced thereto to undergo relative movement to assist in separation of non-coin objects. In one embodiment, the relative movement preferably involves lifting some coins with respect to others and may be achieved by pivoting or rotating the tubular or concave surface, e.g., about an axis. Agitation may be further enhanced by projections formed in or attached to the surface, such as vanes, fins, blades, spines, dimples, ridges, and the like. Movement of coins through or across the tubular or concave surface may be effected or enhanced by various mechanisms. Although gravity feed may be used, in one embodiment blades such as angled, spiral or helical blades assist in moving the coins e.g. in a screw conveyor fashion.
Except for coin entrance and exit ports, diameters, sizes or shapes of the openings are configured to prevent passage therethrough of the smallest coin intended to be counted by the counting device. In one embodiment, a drive mechanism rotates the cylinder about its longitudinal axis to agitate the coins therein by lifting coins and, preferably, moving the coins through the cylinder by a screw mechanism.